Licensing IP rights can be a great way to build a business, either by licensing out your existing IP to other product or service companies, or to expand or promote your products and services by exploiting the popularity of other's IP (otherwise known as Licensing in).  

This month, we'll review the 3 key benefits of licensing out your IP:

• Licensing Fees: Licensing out IP rights (such as brands, designs, artworks or technologies) to other companies can generate lucrative license fees and royalties. Some examples of licensing out include major consumer brands such as automotive (i.e. GM, Ford) and Beverage (i.e. Coke) companies, who license the rights to their brands for a variety of non-competitive product categories (apparel, toys, etc). Licensees of these brands typically pay royalties in the range of 5% - 10%.      
• Marketing Tool: Licensing increases the licensor's brand exposure, and leads the IP into new markets. Sports franchises license the team logos into a variety of product categories, expanding their fan base reach through a variety of products such as t-shirts, hats, and collectible products.
• Attract Sponsorships: Licensing can also be an effective tool to attract sponsorship for special events, as it strengthens the association between the sponsor's brand and the event. Some examples include football matches, art exhibitions, music concerts, benefit dinners, and other type of events that license sponsors to manufacture and sell merchandise that bears the event's trademark or symbol. 

If you are a consulting or professional services company, you could have intellectual property that is being un-monetized ... meaning you could be generating recurring revenues by licensing your expertise.  

Often times expertise intellectual property is in the form of repeated consulting services, business processes or best practices developed over time. A quick review of your to-do projects and you will find a wealth of intellectual property ideas - such as applying your project services in new ways to use on future projects.

What is the core of expertise IP? It is the standardizing of the business process - such as sales systems, marketing platforms or ways to improve productivity - that makes your expertise services a consistent, repeatable "solution template" that can be used over and over again to produce the same results for a variety of clients. This "solution template" becomes a copyrighted IP that can be leveraged (i.e. create recurring revenue) by licensing it to other consultants or service providers.

Are you ready to learn more? Check out my audio workshop - Licensing Your Expertise - The 90 Day Cash Flow Creator. This intensive audio workshop will teach you how to turn your expertise into a licensable IP and create a recurring revenue stream for your consulting or service business. Click here to get more information. 

• 1902 - John Holland was granted a patent for a submarine.
• 1917 - SUNMAID raisins were trademark registered.
• 1947 - Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" was copyrighted.

One of the most important parts of negotiating the licensing agreement is defining the intellectual property to be included in the agreement.  Depending on the IP, it could include one or more parts to the intellectual property.  

Following is a list of some of the IP definitions:

• Patents
• Trademarks and Copyrights
• Invention records
• Know-how
• Research reports
• Production specifications
• Producer lists
• Promotion methods
• Trade secrets
• List of customers
• Drawings and photographs
• Models, tools and parts 

Ask Rand Brenner 

Q: Where are some of the best places to source intellectual property that may be under exploited or under the radar?

A: Licensing is all about trends, and I always recommend starting with a search on the internet. The internet is a great tool for finding information about all sorts of trends in consumer products, services, emerging technologies, and new entertainment just to name a few.  

For example, there are two trending websites that I use - TrendHunter.com and SpringWise.com - that are a great resource for learning about new trends around the world. You can also use Google Trends to find out about the most popular words or subjects that are being searched on a weekly or monthly basis.  

Keep in mind it's not about finding the big home run. There are a lot of great niche licensing opportunities, such as emerging brands, online games or new social media sites, that are unknown or up and coming. Often times these are unexploited opportunities that could be licensed for little or no money. And remember, in a dynamic marketplace you never know when one of these unknowns will suddenly catch fire.